‘I’m on my way. She moves well,’ he answered, staying close to my side as we approached the ring, the outside crammed with buyers. Moving me ahead of him, as we reached Bailey he positioned himself to shield me from the jostling crowd behind.
As they discussed the horses, Bailey pulling up the catalogue on her phone, I tried to unpick what the hell had just happened. Why was it that he could lift me up and fuck me against a wall – twice – but a brief side hug from him sent me into a spiral?
‘I might get some more coffee,’ I said a few minutes later, my muddled brain none the wiser. ‘You want some too?’
‘Not for me . . . but you want me to come with you?’ Jesse asked, while Bailey also declined the offer, craning to see one of the horses emerging from the back of the ring.
I shook my head.
‘Bailey needs your expertise. It’s fine.’
‘If anyone tries anything, you just come right back and find me. I ain’t got no problem cracking skulls first thing in the morning.’
Rolling my eyes at him, I couldn’t help smiling as I left. As if anyone would give a shit about me being here. I strolled around, looking for any sign of coffee, until a short queue of people caught my attention.
I joined the end, taking in the animated conversations around me, mostly about horses but often about family and snippets from everyday life, friends catching up. There seemed to be an invisible web connecting everyone here, a genuine sense of community and a shared lifestyle that I’d never experienced at home. Everyone here was likely part of a ranch in some way, worked with the land they lived on and met the same people over and over at sales and rodeos, one generation after another intertwined. The solitary way I lived, the way most people lived back home in London, seemed so . . . empty in comparison.
Shouts suddenly echoed through the yard; something bashed against metal, and a gate slammed shut. I could see dust rising from a fenced-off corral near the white barn at the far end, and then came a gut-wrenching sound like a horse screeching in pain.
I looked around, wide-eyed, catching the grimace of the older woman in front of me. Seeing my confusion, she shook her head.
‘The Taylors are assholes,’ she murmured as we watched two men approach the gate, clearly trying to find out what was going on, only to be dismissed by whoever was inside the corral. ‘Ain’t nothing good that happens to animals in their hands. I’ve seen that horse before. She’s just got spirit, is all. Looks a bit different, funny mix of somethin’ – but she’d do someone proud. But she won’t be told, not in the way they do it anyway.’
I nodded, the sound of the horse’s pain still echoing in my mind.
‘What’ll happen to her, if no one buys her?’ I asked quietly as we moved up the queue and the woman placed her coffee order.
She winced.
‘You’re not from round here, are ya?’ I shook my head. ‘Well, I’m sorry to say that she’ll likely end up getting taken over the Canadian border. They still take horses for slaughter up there. It’s a damn shame, but ain’t nobody got time to work on horses like that any more.’
I ordered my coffee, holding up a hand as she walked away. That’s when it hit me: the way she’d described the horse, the painful memory that now surfaced.
Your mother and I don’t have the time to indulge you any more. If you won’t take good advice from us, you’ll bloody well take it from a professional. We don’t need your nonsense. Darken someone else’s door with it.
Gritting my teeth, I gripped the cup and stared at the gate.
My feet made the decision for me as I began to stride across the yard. I knew I would likely draw attention, and despite the cowboy hat, the rest of me was all city.
Even as I reached the corral, my head and heart were warring. I knew fuck all about horses. This wasn’t my world. I was leaving to go home in a couple of days with no way of knowing when I’d come back. There was nothing I could do, was there?
Except, when I approached, what I saw stopped me dead.
In the far corner of the corral, hidden behind high fencing, one man was holding the horse – a shimmering dark copper colour all over – while another brought what looked like a long, thin pole down across its back. Rearing up, the horse jerked sideways and body-slammed into the fence, crying out again in pain, eyes flashing, tremors rolling through its body. A lump gathered in my throat, tears immediately springing up behind my eyes.
‘Hey!’ I yelled, banging my fist against the gate. ‘What the fuck are you doing? Stop it right now, or I’ll call the police.’
Both faces whipped towards me, and after a moment, one of them started laughing.
‘Ain’t your business, woman. Fuck off.’
I’d worked long and hard to box my anger away, lid on firmly. But in that moment, it didn’t just come off – the whole fucking box exploded.
Throwing my coffee against the side of the barn, I tried to wrench open the gate, but there was some kind of lock on the side. Instead, I climbed up the bars, placing both hands on the top to vault over and landing with a thud in the dirt on the other side.
‘You okay, ma’am?’ said a voice from behind me. I turned briefly, meeting the eyes of a concerned but kindly looking older cowboy.
‘I need Jesse and Bailey, from the Diamond Back, big red trailer over by the main ring – can you find them, quickly? Please?’
